Chrome OS Tips and Tricks – 2018

Google’s Chrome OS has evolved into a robust operating system with a niche focus. I have been using Chromebooks for a while now, from the “glorified web browser” days to the current all-powerful Play Store time. This page is my collection of Chromebook tips. I regularly update this list, adding new tips as they are added to Chrome OS. If you are a new Chromebook user, this is the perfect place to start!

Note: I am currently re-writing this resource. If you have suggestions, please drop me a comment!

A Guide for New Users

Where is the Caps Lock Key?

This is one of the first questions that new Chromebook users ask. That’s quite normal. There is no caps lock key on any Chromebook.

Google decided to add a search key (and an Assistant key in newer Chromebooks) when they designed the Chrome OS keyboard layout.

This does not mean that you cannot use caps lock on a Chromebook. The first method is to use the keyboard shortcut ALT + SEARCH This enables caps lock on Chrome OS. You will see a notification in the notification area when caps lock is on.

Where is Home, End and Delete Keys

If you take a closer look at your Chromebook’s keyboard layout, you will notice that along with the caps lock key, Home, End and Delete are missing too. Just like the caps lock key, you can use keyboard shortcuts for Home, End and Delete keys.

Lock Chrome OS Screen

You can lock your Chromebook’s screen using the keyboard shortcut SEARCH + L. You can also use the lock icon next to the sign out button on the system tray.

For Home key, press CTRL + ALT + Up Arrow. For End key, press CTRL + ALT + Down Arrow. For Delete key, press ALT + Backspace. You can use the same keyboard shortcut for deleting files from the file manager and Google Drive.

ALT + Number Opens Apps Pinned on Taskbar

If you have apps pinned to your Chromebook’s taskbar, you can use this quick keyboard shortcut to open them. Use ALT + Number to do this.

For example, if you have the Files app pinned to your taskbar as the second item, use ALT + 2 to launch the Files app.

Do a Barrel Roll

Now, let’s have some fun. CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + RELOAD will make your Chromebook do a barrel roll. It’s cool! Do not forget to try this next time you are showing off your Chromebook to friends.

Take Screenshots

To take a screenshot, use the following keyboard shortcut:CTRL + Window Switcher key.

Take a partial screenshot by selecting the area you want to capture, Ctrl+ SHIFT + Window Switcher key.

If you are wondering what this window switcher key is, this is how it looks like:

If you are on a Chromebook with touch screen, go to Settings > More tools > Take screenshot to take a screenshot using the touchscreen.

Open a Command Prompt

To open a command prompt, press CTRL + ALT+ T. Once you are on the command prompt, type shell and hit enter to go to the shell prompt.

Using Your Chromebook When You Are Offline

You can do a lot of things even when your Chromebook is offline. This is especially true if your Chromebook supports Google Play Store and you have Android apps installed.

Google Drive is available as an extension of the FIles app on your Chromebook. It works more like an additional drive. The Google Drive section can hold cached copies of your files. How do you refresh this cache? To refresh Google Drive cache, go to chrome://drive-internals/ and click “Clear local data” to clear cache.

Changing your chromebook’s release channel, (software version) is a good idea if you want to experiment or check out new features waiting for general release. Chrome OS has stable channel which is without any experimental features and Beta and Dev channels which feature experimental features.To change channels, visit chrome://help and click More Info. You can switch channels here, and with one re-start, you will be on the new release channel you picked.

To insert Unicode characters, press CTRL + U + The number for the unicode character.

Once you are in the command prompt (CTRL + ALT + T ) you can do SSH using the following format. sshusername computernameORipaddress. To view available SSH options, type ssh hit enter, and then hit enter one more time.

On an ARM Chromebook, Hold ESC + Refresh buttons then push power to enter developer mode.

To view hardware information of your Chromebook while it is booting, press Ctrl + i or Tab + i.

To get the version of chrome your Google Chromebook is running using CLI in dev-mode [crosh/shell] type: /opt/google/chrome/chrome –version

To view free space available on your Google Chromebook’s local drive (HDD or SSD) visit chrome://quota-internals/. Alternatively, you can click the gear icon on the Files app to view remaining space.

To enable accessibility options on your Google Chromebook, visit chrome://settings/search#accessibility. You can enable the Accessibility menu, spoken feedback and other accessibility options.

Press SHIFT + ALT + M to open the file manager. The file manager on Chrome OS is called the Files app. This app has an inbuilt audio player, video player and a picture viewer with basic editing options.

While viewing pictures from the Chrome OS File Manager, (Files app) press E (as in Editor) to quickly edit the picture using the inbuilt image editor.

If you are experiencing trouble with 3G or Wifi internet connection on your Google Chromebook, here is a way to start your diagnostic. Visit chrome://diagnostics and test your connection status.

You can create a recovery media right from the Google Chromebook. You need a 4GB or larger USB flash drive or SD card. This card needs to be wiped completely so make sure you don’t have any data on it. Open up chrome://imageburner and follow onscreen instructions.

To view the total amount of RAM, open chrome://system, find meminfo and click expand.

To view the mac address of your device, go to Settings, search for Internet Connection. Now, click on the name of the network that you are currently connected to. A popup box with the network information will be displayed. The Hardware address listed there is the MAC address.

To know the bandwidth used by your Chromebook/Chromebox, open chrome://net-internals/#bandwidth

Hold Shift key and click on any app to open it in a separate window,without the addressbar. This makes it look like an app, instead of a website!. You can right click any app to change the way they open by default, for example, full screen, new tab, new window etc.

On the Status Area (The small pop up menu you get by clicking the time and profile icon on the bottom right corner of Chrome OS desktop) click the profile icon to easily access profile pic changing settings.

On the file manager, right-click Downloads drive to see available space on your Chromebook’s HDD/SD.

In Settings search for “Use High Contrast Mode” and enable to view Google Chrome OS in high resolution.

If you try to open a .swf file (flash) from the Files app, you will get an error saying it is unsupported. Drag the file to a Chrome tab, and it will work fine!

You can access files present on the inbuilt Google Drive app from Chrome omnibar too. Open drive:drive/root/ followed by the file name. Note: it will not work without a file name.

In Chrome OS, a hidden folder is actually a folder that starts with a dot like “.hidden_folder” for instance. By pressing <Ctrl> + “.” in the Files App, you can quickly toggle hidden folders visibility. It also works with files.

To remove wallpaper images that you added through “Custom” section, right-click the image and select Delete.

On the Chrome OS wallpaper picker screen, you can check “Surprise me” to see a random wallpaper each time you log in.

The keyboard shortcut to rename a file in the Chrome OS Files app is CTRL + ENTER.

A hard reset is one of the primary troubleshooting steps that you can try whenever there is an issue with your Chromebook. A hard reset will restart your Chromebook hardware, like the keyboard, touchpad, and battery. The reset won’t delete any files or settings from your Chromebook. On most of the Chromebooks, this can be done with REFRESH + POWER. Find more details here.

Press Ctrl + Shift + Q , twice (second time for confirmation) to exit

<Shift> + [ ] (F4 or the full screen key) to make a packaged (native) app full screen.

If you are on Developer Mode (not developer channel) you can force an update to Chrome OS by typing the following command in Chrome OS shell update_engine_client -update.

When you open the Message Center, press the red bell icon to pause notifications for a day. You can click the Android like clear notifications icon (those three lines!) to clear all notifications at once.

Pressing the <Ctrl> + <Shift> + 9 keyboard shortcut toggles the Projection Touch HUD. This is useful when you are doing a presentation on an external display, and wants to show your interactions with the touchscreen.

Open chrome://gesture to tweak gesture settings in Chrome OS

You can create shortcuts (on the left sidebar) in the Files app to certain folders. Right-click and choose Create Shortcut. You can remove the folder by right-clicking and choosing “Remove folder” (Currently behind the flag chrome://flags/#file-manager-enable-folder-shortcuts )

If you want to disable touchscreen on your Chromebook, (read Pixel for now) chrome://flags and set the “Touch Events” flag to “Disabled”.

Chrome OS has a MacOS like Exposé feature. Here, it is called the Overview Mode. This as the name suggests, gives you an overview of the open tabs and windows. You can access the overview mode with three finger swipe. Swipe from the top of the touchpad to the bottom.

From settings, check “Enable stick keys” to perform keyboard shortcuts by typing even them sequentially in Chrome OS. In this mode, you can press and release a modifier key such as , or and have it remain active until any other key is pressed.

Open chrome://power to display battery charge percentage over time. This page will be updated soon with more power/battery related information.

While using Chromecast with a Chromebook (ie, casting from a Chromebook), you can close the lid without worrying about losing your content. Chrome OS considers Chromecast similar to an external display and continues to cast.

Pressing <shift> while clicking on a Chrome Hosted App in the App Launcher opens it in a window instead of a regular tab by default.

You can do a Power Wash and reset your Chromebook without logging in the device. This is useful if you ever get locked out of a Chromebook. At the first login screen, press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+R and tap the Restart button.

If you have the “Multi Profile” mode enabled, click the drop down arrow on the profile icon on the login screen to choose another account.

For a split-screen effect, you can dock a window to the left or right. Click and hold the maximize icon, you will see two arrows, one pointing to the left and the other to the right. Use these to dock the window to the right or left. You can also use the shortcut ALT + [ to dock left, or ALT + ] to dock right.

You can right-click any folder inside your Google Drive account and create a shortcut for easy access. You can do this for your sub-folders too, which makes this feature even more useful. If you have a folder that you frequently access, but is a couple of levels deep (like I do most of the times; Documents > Home > Bills > April, that kind of stuff) this is going to help you a lot. Just right click any Google Drive folder from the sidebar of Files app, and select “Create Shortcut”.

The Files app displays your storage media as separate drives. You can use memory cards, USB drives and external hard drives and even Android phones. What’s the one thing that you remember doing while removing such external media from your computer? Safely ejecting before removing them. On the Files app, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + E to eject a removable device.

Do you have a touchscreen Chromebook? Nice! What if you want to turn off the touchscreen occasionally and use just the keyboard and the touchpad? You can do this with a keyboard shortcut. Turn on/off the touch screen using this keyboard shortcut: SEARCH + SHIFT + T.

Are you a mouse person or a touchpad person? I use a mouse most of the times and can manage without turning the touchpad off. However, in some cases, it is good to have it turned off to avoid accidental clicks and mouse movements. Turn the touch pad on/off using this keyboard shortcut: <Search> + <Shift> + P

While connecting any device using Bluetooth, it is important to be able to identify the device by its name. To change your Chromebook’s Bluetooth device name, open a Chrome OS Shell with [CTRL] + [ALT] + T, type bt_console and go to Bluetooth Console. Enter “system-alias <deviceName>” where <deviceName> is the new device name.

On the Chrome OS audio player, use SPACE + K to pause / play music. Use Down/Up or Left/Right to Rewind/Forward min(5s, 10% of the duration) and J/L => Rewind/Forward min(10s, 20% of the duration).

Use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + along with + or – to increase or decrease screen resolution on your Chromebook.

Hope you learned a thing or two here. Please do share this resource with your friends and fellow Chromies!Thanks everyone who shared these tips on various forums and communities. A big thank you to François Beaufort and all my Google Plus friends!